Stranger in a Strange Land

There are the obvious signposts: the pandemic, the murder of George Floyd, January 6 which change the world in both profound and superficial ways. Profound change might fall in the category of the “paradigm shifts” Thomas Kuhn outlined in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Superficial change is the closing of the two CVS pharmacies on Third Avenue. Of superficial changes, the closing of pharmacies has been one of the most notable. The fact is that the world before February of 2020 seems almost innocent, pre-Adamic in quality. Remembering back, you may not recognize that social creature closing “social distance” perhaps by increasing one’s "social capital." On a superficial level you shared spaces with people and saw their faces. You had never heard of Zoom. Every population exhibits different longevity for men and women. There are a small group who die young and then there are the others who start falling off much later in life. The pandemic put friendship in an evolutionary framework. It became a literal Ice Age eliminating entire species of human relationship while whittling down the few that remained. Quantum mechanics changed the laws of physics. A particle could, for instance, be in two places at the same time. One of the legacies of co-morbidity is a non-theatrical form of Brechtian verfremdungseffekt or "estrangement." The familiar becomes unreal, familiar faces are imposters (the neuro term is Capgras Syndrome) or familiar faces suddenly seem scrambled (Prosopagnosia). Will life continue on from where it left off BC, (Before Covid)? Is it a matter of simply removing the masks? Unlikely. The Robert Heinlein classic, Stranger in a Strange Land, deals with the return to earth by a space traveller who has grown up on Mars.

read "The Chapbook Lady" by Francis Levy, Vol. 1 Brooklyn

and listen to "A Change is Gonna Come" by Sam Cooke

Monetizing

The International Monetary Fund (Washington, DC)

For lawyers and psychiatrists, time is money. You pay both by the hour. But just about everything can be monetized. People record conversations and turn them into podcasts. Prostitutes charge for love, but how many novels have been the result of love gone awry or love interrupted by illness a la Love Story. If someone is funny, their friends immediately encourage them to practice standup. There are many hobbyists, but what happens when your avocation turns into a vocation. Bridge and backgammon players enter tournaments for which there are prizes and chess is an industry, some of which is now automated a la Deep Blue. The line between amateur and professional sports is becoming increasingly thin particularly as it pertains to intercollegiate athletics. In some cases, this leads to increasing the amount of danger involved. For instance, there are climbers and then free soloists who defy gravity by ascending walls of stone with no ropes or carabiners. Daredevils, like the Wallendas, are a lucrative business. Gourmets populate cooking shows, but what about gourmands who go for quantity over quality? Every year there is a hot dog eating contest with a prize. In Nathans 2021 annual hotdog contest Joey Chestnut ate 78 hotdogs with buns and won the famous bejeweled yellow colored belt. Philately, numismatics and lepidoptery all provide financial rewards for those who wish to pursue them. Can you make money from licking envelopes closed, opening up jars or cleaning the water out of your soap tray? Does it profit to cross 42^nd Street or put something back where it belongs?Who will compensate you for the effort? A thoughtful person can be said to be blessed but will she be remunerated for her pondering? 

read "The Chapbook Lady" by Francis Levy, Vol.1 Brooklyn

and listen to "Poetry in Motion" by Johnny Tillotson

The Protest Ethic and the Inevitability of Failure

One of the most good intentioned defense mechanisms is that you're your work or lack thereof. It’s sweet, eternally and fungibly countercultural and fundamentally disingenuous. To defend against doing nothing or failure is to invidiously compare those activities to productivity and success. Why isn’t being a failure an estimable activity? Why isn’t coming home empty-handed worthy? Conversely are successful people good? Is there something righteous about being rich? Calvinists think so since they believe in grace. This was the inspiration for Max Weber’s The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. But the fact is that in the current age of scientistIsm and disenchantment, there's no salvation. Failure is something to learn from and a requisite for self-knowledge. Underachievers of the world, unite! Revel in your lassitude!

read "The Chapbook Lady" by Francis Levy, Vol.1 Brooklyn

and listen to "How Can We Hang On To a Dream"by Tim Hardin

Royal Flush

 

If you have something to offer you probably get more e mails than you can handle. You're valuable currency trading strongly against the dollar. People who're lucky enough to have done business with You will be able to cash in and get more bang for their bucks, euros or whatever else money can buy. You’re also fungible which means it’s very easy to go back and forth in you. Your quotient is the lingua franca of high rollers. On the other hand, you may have spent your whole life wanting other people to make you whole. Validation is the elusive prize, you’re never able to attain. Realizing this truth, you may one day sink into despair and jump out the window. Decks of cards are supposed rely on chance, but certain people continue to get dealt great hands. Their piles of chips multiply exponentially to the point that they’re still ahead despite intermittent losses—while others are always left trying to make up the shortfall. You know who you are. You get the drift. Are you one of those people whose heart starts to beat when they see l0 as they number of unopened e mails only to find that every one is from Ancestry, Optimum, Spectrum, Sirius or Jet Blue ?

read "The Chapbook Lady" by Francis Levy, Vol. 1 Brooklyn

and listen to "O Sole Mio" by Enrico Caruso

Star Wars

Russia’s one ally may end up being North Korea. What the two countries have in common is the threat to use nuclear weapons as a solution to diplomatic issues.  Obviously, there are other countries with nuclear capabilities but they're not likely to go ballistic. Back during World War II, the O.S.S did psychohistories of leaders. Hitler was, of course, one. Whether they got into the business with his niece is not clear, but the psychological profiling was helpful in predicting behavior. In the case of Kim Jong-un you have the notorious eradication of his Uncle, Jang Song-thaek, purportedly with a mortar and there's also the poisoning of his half-brother, Kim Jong-nam. They were not a close family. In the case of Vladimir Putin, you have the former wife, Lyudmila Shkrebneva, the two daughters, Katerina Tikhonova and Maria Vorontsova and the girlfriend, Alina Kabaevna (with whom he may have had children). All of these relationships comprise the chrysalis of the current situation and help to throw light on how both dictators will act in response to provocation. The real problem is what happens when Putin and Kim Jong-un stop getting along. Then you have Star Wars.

read "Promiscuous and Protean" by Francis Levy, The East Hampton Star

and listen to "The Harder They Come" by Jimmy Cliff

Will the Moscow Art Theatre Play Pyongyang?

stamp showing The Government Inspector by Gogol at MAT

In the light of sanctions leveled against Russia,will the Moscow Art Theatre perform The Seagull in Pyongyang? Will the Bolshoi be performing for the generals in Myanmar? There has been much talk about Putin catalyzing the unification of the West, with Finland and Sweden joining NATO. But the Hegelian dialectic is not only applicable to the “dictatorship of the proletariat.” Milk softens black coffee; new ideas often attract strange bedfellows. Culture like the viscous accumulation in a pipe has to find somewhere to go. Perhaps the net result is pushback from fundamentalists who fear the dilution of their values? It’s unlikely there will be a North Korean version of “Pussy Riot.” Putin brought about everything he was afraid of. However, historical and cultural forces can act in unpredictable ways. In America militant feminists aligned against pornography with right wing Christians. Germany turned out be the beneficiary of liberal democracy—through the Marshall Plan—in a way that radically changed the predominant ethos of its population.

Read "Kim Jong-un's Social Anxiety Disorder" by Francis Levy, HuffPost

and watch the animation of Erotomania

Once a Pickle

“Robert J. Vlastic Dies at 96; Made a Fortune Making Pickles” ran the Times obit (NYT, 5/22/22). One thing is certain, he didn’t get into a pickle which is a turn of phrase Mr. Vlastic might not have cottoned to since in addition to profiting from his product, he, according to the headline in the daily Times, “Had Jokes by the Jarful.” “He loved pickle jokes and eventually collected them in a pamphlet, ‘Bob Vlastic’s 101 Pickle Jokes,’ the cover of which featured a gunslinging, cowboy-hatted gherkin and this salty knee-slapper: ‘Who’s the tough pickle in Dodge City. Marshall Dill.” Clearly Vlastic was a “Man For all Seasons” or seasonings if you want a soubriquet that carries on his legacy and conveys a feeling for the force behind the welcoming bottle with its mysterious green condiment (that looked like a creature out of “War of the Worlds”). “Once a pickle no longer a cucumber,” one of the favorites of the recovery movement was not one of Mr. Vlastic’s jokes. Mr. Vlastic's son, Bill, apparently didn't follow his father into the pickle business, instead becoming Detroit bureau chief for The Times.

Read "Diasporic Dining: Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous" by Francis Levy, HuffPost

and listen to "Bile 'Em Cabbage Down"by Buck Owens